


Beyond the Fence

by LastLeaf



Series: Beyond the Fence [1]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-05 07:35:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/720488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LastLeaf/pseuds/LastLeaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Divorced with a failing business, Peeta Mellark doesn't think he can sink any lower. Until he finds himself attracted to his neighbor's 20 year-old niece.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thebluelake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebluelake/gifts).



The first sight that always caught Peeta's eye when he looked out his back window and into Haymitch Abernathy's yard was the swimming pool. Their houses were on opposite sides of the block so their backyards met in the middle, separated only by the rickety wooden fence that surrounded Haymitch's house. His own yard was nothing special, just grass maintained to a level of perfection that gave it an almost artificial quality. And he really wasn't much for horticulture. There weren't any flowerbeds or shrubs or a garden lined with crisp vegetables and fragrant herbs. Nothing he could plant would be as interesting to look at as the wild expanse behind Haymitch's place, anyway.

In the two years Peeta had been his neighbor, he'd never seen Haymitch attempt to mow his yard. For that matter, he wasn't entirely sure Haymitch even owned a mower. The few times Peeta offered to help, Haymitch would hurl empty bottles and epithets at him until Peeta finally gave up. So beyond the fence, instead of fit-for-a-golf-course perfection, were thick blades of crab grass dotted yellow with dandelions each Spring, noxious weeds that climbed the exterior of the house, and wildflowers that lasted until the first frost of the season. In the middle of it all, nearly swallowed up by the tall grasses and brush around it, sat a rusted metal structure that had once been a child's swingset, now a haven for wasps that nested in every available crevice. The pool was next to it, the faded azure plastic cracked and filthy, dry as dust. A thicket of berries crawled up the ladder that no feet had touched in years. Inside were two thin maple saplings that must have sprung up through cracks in the bottom, with spindly branches that peaked out over the top, making the whole thing look like a gigantic, neglected potted plant.

Peeta wasn't sure he had ever seen anything more heartbreaking. Or more beautiful.

That morning, though, something else managed to divert his attention. For once the curtains covering Haymitch's sliding glass back door were open, giving him an inadvertent peak inside the kitchen. A girl who looked to be in her early twenties set a plate of food in front of him. He started yelling but the sound was muffled and Peeta couldn't tell exactly _what_ Haymitch was yelling. The girl yelled back, though no words were discernible. Just noise.

He wondered who she was. Haymitch rarely had visitors. It was hard to get a good look at her. She kept moving in and out of sight. From what he could tell, she was petite with a lean, athletic body, with coal-colored hair tied back into a braid that fell just below her ribcage. Peeta watched as Haymitch flung a forkful of what looked like eggs toward her, and she slid open the door and stepped outside.

“If you wanted someone to be nice to you all the time, you would've asked Prim to live here instead,” he heard her shout.

“If the kid weren't still in high school I would have, _sweetheart_.” That last word was tinged with too much hostility to be a term of endearment.

The girl slammed the door shut and turned around, and her eyes unexpectedly caught his. She scowled at him. He moved away from the window.

It was his day off from the bakery and because of that, he had a full day of nothing to look forward to. He had a lot of days off lately. Business had been slow ever since the new Walmart opened down the street. Among its many amenities, like the Starbucks and the free Wi-Fi, was an in-store bakery. With low, low prices. Where customers could buy their bread and cakes and pastries and pick up toilet paper or a quart of motor oil all in the same convenient location. His own bakery, squeezed between a consignment shop and a vacant building that used to house a bookstore, was a much emptier place than it had been just a year ago. He knew the economical thing to do would be to lay people off and do most of the work himself, but jobs were hard to come by, and so he made sure to give his employees as many hours as he could afford. The economy would eventually turn around, he told himself. Because if there was one thing Peeta Mellark was good at, it was clinging to the hope that things would eventually get better, though more and more often he was struck with the likelihood that he'd be waiting forever.

 

* * *

 

He awoke to the sound of singing in the distance. He'd been dreaming when he heard it, the sound just floating there in the background, then, as he made the fuzzy transition into wakefulness, realized it hadn't stopped. It was a female voice, low and throaty. He wouldn't call it angelic or birdlike or any of the standard clichés to describe a beautiful voice. It had a raw, sultry quality to it. Definitely not an angel. Whoever it belonged to had feet planted firmly on Earth.

He threw on a pair of pants but no shirt, and followed the sound until he stared out his kitchen window. That girl who lived at Haymitch's house was on her bare knees, in a burgundy tank top and khaki shorts and no shoes, plucking weeds from the cracks in the patio. An orange fishing hat shielded her face from the unrelenting August sun. He was pretty sure he recognized her song, an old standard his father had liked years ago. When Peeta opened the window for a better listen, the screen popped out and landed with a plop on his own cement patio. The girl abruptly stopped. Their eyes locked for a moment, even through the window. She dropped the handful of leaves and stems crushed in her fist and retreated back into the house.

Peeta wouldn't be able to stop thinking about that voice, about the girl who possessed it. Even days later, it continued to haunt him.

 

* * *

 

The girl's name was Katniss. He knew this because he heard Haymitch shouting it followed by the sound of shattering glass while Peeta mowed his lawn one morning. They were always shouting at one another, Peeta noticed. He never knew what about.

Katniss, as she had almost every morning in the two weeks she'd been there, slammed the back door behind her as she trudged her way through the backyard. He'd never seen her without a glass barrier before. His heart sped up against his will. The force of the door's impact caused a piece of siding to pop out of place above her. She strained on her tiptoes to reach it and push it back where it belonged, making her tank top – the same one she wore the day he caught her singing – ride up, exposing a strip of smooth, olive skin. The garment appeared well-worn, fraying at the bottom. A loose thread dangled below and swayed like a pendulum with each movement she made. He found himself fascinated with it, squinting in the sunlight for a better look. Foolishly envious of it because of its proximity to her bare skin.

He had to pry his eyes away so she wouldn't catch him staring again as he continued to push his lawn mower forward.

That night as he lay in bed, he thought of that loose thread hanging from Katniss' red tank top. He imagined tugging on it, lightly, of unraveling every inch of fabric until there was nothing left covering her. He thought of her pert breasts that probably fit perfectly in his palms. His hand traveled below his sheets and slipped beneath the waistband of his shorts. He was already hard. As he stroked himself, he speculated on the color of her nipples. Of what they might taste like. Emboldened, he allowed himself to whimper her name when he felt himself getting close. He tried not to think about the fact that he was jacking off to a neighbor he'd never spoken to. Who was probably just a little over half his age. But those thoughts were pushed aside when he remembered the way she sang, and imagined the kinds of noises she might make if he fucked her.

It was the hardest he'd come in recent memory, but he was so ashamed he wouldn't even let himself enjoy it.

 

* * *

 

The irony struck him, as he stood there with his phone cradled to his ear, that there was once a time in those last strained years of his marriage when he wanted desperately for Clove to communicate with him more. “You're a real piece of shit, Peeta, you know that?”

She was legally required to inform him when she wanted to take their five year-old son Max out of the state. For some reason, it was very important to Clove that she take him to DisneyWorld the week before school started.

“This is my weekend with him,” he repeated firmly, but Clove cut him off before he could say more.

“Cato and I both have the week off. You'll be right there when we come back. It's not like you ever go anywhere anyway.”

He wanted to retort that Cato had _every_ week off. The man was unemployed. For someone so _promising_ with an Ivy League education, Cato Fuller had a difficult time keeping a job thanks to his volatile temper.

Peeta's thirteen year marriage to Clove soured approximately a nanosecond after the honeymoon. He would say that they had become strangers living in the same house, but looking back, they were never anything more than strangers who occasionally sat across from one another at restaurants or next to each other in darkened theaters, and moved together between their sheets. They never really talked about anything important. When Clove did speak to him, it was usually to complain, or go into great detail about an item she wanted to purchase, or go on about work. Soon, even that talk ceased. Except when it came to Cato, her then-coworker and former childhood nemesis. He and Clove had attended the same private school together. They hadn't been friends. Clove had been adamant about that. They were rivals, always competing for the top grades, awards, scholarships. They barely tolerated each other, or so she said.

Peeta had always been aware of the rumors, and in that last year, Clove didn't try very hard to hide it.

The infidelity had merely been the final straw, of course. The truth was, he had more unhappy memories of his marriage than happy ones. They stayed together out of convenience, mostly. And maybe, if he was truly being honest with himself, part of why he'd stayed for so long was to prove some sort of point. To himself. To his family. To everyone. When Peeta brought Clove home the first time, on Spring Break during their sophomore year of college, his mother had laughed, looking him in the eye and telling him he could never keep a “quality girl like her” interested for long. His response was to stand ramrod straight, look her directly in the eye with equal intensity, and to simply tell her she was wrong.

Conversely, when he met Clove's parents, her father took an instant dislike to him. No one was good enough for his little girl. That only fueled her attraction. Peeta would eventually win the man over, but by then it didn't matter much anymore.

The only good thing to come out of his marriage was Max. Clove had never wanted kids, and they were always very careful, so it came as a shock when Clove became pregnant. But Peeta had been elated. Because of his own childhood, he'd always questioned, somewhere in the back of his mind, whether parenting was something that he could – _should_ – take on. That perhaps there lay in him an undercurrent of darkness threatening to burst forward. The kind that made his mother turn ordinary household items like the rolling pin or a curtain rod into something to fear, and then, when he grew too big to intimidate physically, she fashioned her words into weapons. Fifty percent of his genetic makeup came from this woman. The thought scared him to death. So he had respected Clove's wishes. He'd wanted her more than the vague idea of family and children that he hadn't allowed himself to consider until the day Clove kicked over the wastebasket, stomped out of their shared bathroom, and glumly announced that they were having a baby. In that instant it came to him as clear as a breeze – what kind of person he truly was, the kind of father he vowed to become. He didn't know why he'd ever doubted himself.

As little Max grew, his features became sharper, more defined, with his straight, but unruly, dark hair and a cowlick in front that refused to obey a hairbrush; small, shrewd eyes the color of espresso beans; a button-like nose. In most ways Max was very much Clove's son. But there was something oddly familiar about him, too, that was neither Clove nor Peeta. In fact, there didn't seem to be anything of the Mellark side in him at all.

A fact Peeta's mother would gleefully taunt him about. She'd throw it in his face at every available opportunity that the boy looked nothing like their side of the family, that he looked a lot more like Cato. That he was throwing away his hard-earned money on a child who wasn't even his. “But then,” she'd snidely add, “you never were very good with your money. Always tossing it away like it grows on trees. Just like your father. Oh well. At least little Max will end up with more sense than the two of you. That Cato person went to Harvard, didn't he?”

Her words stung, but none of that mattered. Peeta had been the one in the delivery room when Max was born. He had cut the umbilical cord. It was Peeta who had painted the nursery and assembled the crib. And stayed up nights soothing an infant Max when he was colicky. He bandaged up the scraped knees and repaired the broken toys. Max was _his_ son. Even if he did have Cato's chin.

When Peeta repeated himself, that it was his weekend according to the custody agreement and he wasn't about to let her change that, Clove went in for the kill. “Did you hear that?” She was no longer speaking directly into the phone, but made no effort to cover the receiver. She wanted Peeta to hear this. “Daddy doesn't want you to see Mickey Mouse. He doesn't think you should have any fun.”

Peeta could hear Max's tiny wails of protest on the other end. He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. Clove handed Max the phone. Peeta wished him a good trip to Disney.

 

* * *

 

He'd avoided this ever since that night he thought of Katniss and let his traitorous body get carried away. It was only his sense of duty as Haymitch's neighbor that propelled him forward. He did this every week or so, but he'd lapsed pretty badly. Almost a month had gone by since the last time he'd dropped off leftover bread from his bakery. Haymitch normally wasn't particularly receptive to the gifts, but Peeta always managed to talk him into accepting them.

He remembered the first time he set foot inside Haymitch's house. He was overcome with the powerful stench of decay, probably rotting food and decomposing rats. Droppings littered every surface. Dirty dishes sat dormant on the kitchen table and formed a pile in the sink. Garbage overflowed in every wastebasket and empty liquor bottles stood on shelves and tabletops like trophies.

For someone who was supposed to make a comfortable living, as per the crumbs of gossip he'd heard from Effie Trinket, Peeta's neighbor across the street, Haymitch's money hadn't been spent on furniture. The kitchen table looked relatively new, but cheap, like something you'd buy for a college student's first apartment. The kitchen joined with a small sitting room with almost nothing in it. Across from an old television set was a lumpy, threadbare couch. There was a groove in the middle cushion where Haymitch probably spent most of his time.

Peeta always walked the long way, around the block, to get to the front door. He rang the bell a few times before someone answered. He'd almost given up and left. To his horror, it was Katniss on the other side of the door. She'd obviously been doing housework. She held a bottle of floor cleaner tightly in her gloved hand. The other gripped the doorknob.

Not even inside the house, he made note of the improved odor. Now it only smelled faintly of pine-scented garbage.

“Can I help you?”

“These are for Haymitch.” He was afraid if he looked her in the eyes she'd somehow be able to read his mind and know the disgusting things he'd thought about her.

“We didn't order anything.”

“I know. These are left over from my bakery.” He extended a hand to her. “Hi. I'm Peeta Mellark.”

Her eyes narrowed. Her hand remained at her side. “What's the catch?”

“Pardon me?”

“I mean, you're just giving them to him? For nothing?”

“I'm just trying to be a good neighbor.”

“And he just takes them?”

“Yeah. We've had this arrangement for a couple years now.” He flashed her a genial smile, hoping it would soften her toward him. It didn't.

“He shouldn't be doing that." she said. "He shouldn't be taking stuff from you without paying for it.”

“I can't even sell these anymore. I'd take them myself, but my freezer's already filled. Really, I'd have to throw them away. I would hate to see them go to waste.”

The mention of potentially wasting food appeared to have an effect on her. This was clearly the correct tactic to take. Still, she raised an eyebrow at him. “So basically you've been giving my uncle garbage-rolls.”

She wasn't smiling, but something new and not entirely hostile sparked in her eyes. He wondered if this was her version of teasing.“Hey, how about you taste these garbage-rolls before you pass judgment,” he teased back.

Reluctantly, she took the bag from him. “Thank you,” she said, before giving him one last wary look, and then went back inside.

 

* * *

 

On one morning a particularly loud argument erupting between Katniss and Haymitch brought Peeta outside. It was another one of his days off, otherwise he'd have been at the bakery hours ago. Katniss was already out there, pacing around the yard on her cellphone, knee-deep in weeds. When she hung up, she looked even more dejected than before.

Peeta crossed his yard to meet her at the fence. He hadn't put on shoes and the soggy grass squished between his toes. “Hey. You all right?”

She took a few steps toward him. “My car won't start. It does that sometimes after it's been raining hard. My friend Madge says it's probably the spark plugs or something.”

“I take it you need to go somewhere?”

I have class in an hour.”

“And it's not something that you can miss, huh?”

She flicked at the top of a milkweed plant beside her, watching the white tufts scatter in the air. “Usually I'd just borrow someone's notes, but there's an exam today. Car trouble isn't a good enough excuse. Someone has to have died before Dr. Aurelius'll give out a make-up exam."

“Where do you go to school, Katniss?”

Her gray eyes widened at his use of her name, but all the same, answered: “Capitol.”

Capitol University was a relatively short drive, but a hell of a long walk. “If your car has trouble with the rain, why doesn't Haymitch just let you park in the garage?”

“I can't. It's crammed with a bunch of his old junk.”

“And he won't let you drive his car?”

“He doesn't have one. They took his license a couple years ago, so he sold it.”

It embarrassed him that he didn't know this. So much for being a good neighbor. How could he live near someone all this time and not know that he never left the house? There was a liquor store and a grocery store within walking distance, so perhaps he did get out, but Peeta still couldn't help but feel disconcerted by this new information. At least he could somewhat make this right by helping Katniss, or so he rationalized. “I'll tell you what: let me grab my keys and I'll drop you off. Is there someone who can bring you home?”

She shook her head. “I have classes until late, and my friends work in the evening.”

“What time are you done?”

“My last class ends at 8:20,” she told him.

“Then I'll pick you up at 8:20.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

She slid into the passenger seat of his Dodge Charger, as tense as a curled leaf beside him. He couldn't be sure whether her apparent discomfort was with accepting this favor or having to endure a twenty minute commute with a man she barely knew. Probably both.

She smelled like cut grass and maple syrup. And Pine-Sol. He noticed her eying his satellite radio and offered to let her control the music. He honestly didn't know what twenty year-olds listened to. As she scrolled through the stations, she landed on, of all things, a channel playing jazz standards.

He wasn't familiar with the singer or the song. This was his parents' music growing up, not his. They'd been forty years old by the time he was born. His brothers were already in high school. Johnny was about to head off to college. His parents had plans, dreams of travel, of being contented empty nesters. Peeta's unexpected arrival ruined all of that.

The sound of Katniss singing softly under her breath to the music caused him to turn toward her. He wanted to turn down the volume to hear her better. As if sensing someone's eyes on her, she stopped suddenly. The silence between them stretched until the next highway exit when Peeta finally said, “I heard you sing a few weeks ago.”

“I know,” she muttered, her eyes trained on the floor.

“That song...it was one of my father's favorites.”

“Skylark,” she supplied, still not looking up at him.

Desperate to keep the conversation going, he asked, “So is that your major? Music?”

“No. Business Administration.”

“Your voice is beautiful, by the way.”

Her cheeks flushed ever-so-slightly. “I don't sing much anymore.”

“Well, you look happy when you sing. Especially that last time, when you sang Skylark, funny enough.”

She finally glanced up and craned her neck to look at him. “Why is that funny?”

He shrugged. “It's a pretty sad song.”

“Is it? I guess I never paid that much attention. The lyrics are all about birds and meadows...”

He hummed thoughtfully. “It's about...wanting someone to love you...wondering if anyone ever will.”

“So she asks a bird to help her find it?”

“Seems pretty hopeless, doesn't it?”

"Someone should tell her that what she's looking for is overrated. Or him. Depending on who's singing."

"You're a little young to be that jaded."

Her lips formed a tight line across her face. "I've seen enough. Age has nothing to do with it."

They sat in silence during three entire songs. Katniss didn't attempt to sing any of them.

When they reached the campus, Katniss directed him to where she should be dropped off. Her gaze briefly met his as she climbed out of the car. Her eyes flitted away. "Thanks," she said.

It was only when she walked away that Peeta began to wonder just what it was that Katniss had seen. How she could seemingly write off the concept of love, yet still be able to sing about it so convincingly. Even after everything he'd been through, he couldn't fathom hardening his heart in that way, as damaged and neglected as it was.

He thought of that swimming pool where Katniss lived, sad and broken, yet somehow signs of life had attached themselves to it. Peeta hoped the same could be said for his heart someday, that something real could take root and grow inside it. Because if there was one thing in this life that Peeta Mellark could do, it was hope.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Delly Cartwright was Peeta’s oldest, and perhaps best, friend. They’d lived in the same neighborhood since Peeta was nine – waiting together at their shared bus stop, eating dinner at each other’s houses, drawing pictures on their driveways with colored chalk. When Peeta moved there in the fourth grade, Delly was the first one to defend him when the other kids made fun of his Texan accent, which he spent the rest of the school year working hard to lose. And when some of their classmates teased Delly about the lingering baby fat that made her cheeks and stomach bigger than those of her peers, Peeta was the one who stood up to them. This was still that period of childhood before it was socially acceptable for boys and girls to be friends, what with the rampant threat of cooties, so Delly liked to tell people that Peeta was her brother. And on those occasions when Peeta spent the evening at the Cartwrights’ house – where there was no yelling, no passive-aggressive digs leveled at one another, no one bursting into tears, no fistfights or broken dishes – Peeta reveled in the fantasy of having Delly as a sister. He’d liked being a Cartwright, if only temporarily.

 

So he tried hard to remember that as he sat there at his kitchen table. For the past hour he’d been one-handedly sketching a picture of the sun setting over a lake while he held the telephone to his ear. Delly was married, a mother of two, with a career that fulfilled her, living in the dream house her husband had built for her. She’d always been sunshine personified, but lately she was radiating happiness. It hovered in the air between them, even if that air now stretched for hundreds of miles. She also made it her mission to spread her good fortune to all of her loved ones. It didn’t surprise Peeta, then, that at every opportunity after he and Clove had split, Delly attempted to set Peeta up with one of her many friends. With no success.

 

“She’s gorgeous, Peet,” came Delly’s voice on the other end of the line, “and she has a Master’s in Economics, so maybe she could help with your bakery problem.” Ah, yes. Not only was Delly going to help his love life, she was also going to save his livelihood. If awards were given for excellence in multitasking, Delly’s dream house would be littered with blue ribbons.

 

The last time he went on a blind date, it was with one of Delly’s sorority sisters, her “Little”, whatever that meant. The woman was beautiful, with shiny blond hair and long legs and eyes so vividly green he wasn't even sure they were her natural color. When she introduced herself, telling him to “just call [her] Glimmer,” he tried not to use that as a strike against her. Tried not to keep score, period. Delly had warned him to keep an open mind. That not everyone was Clove.

 

At the pretentious little bistro she’d picked out, in which they were served far too little food for far too much money, _Glimmer_ spent half the night talking about her ex. Marvel never used to take her out anywhere nice. Marvel had a new girlfriend already. Marvel’s cock was apparently the size of a brazil nut. Strike two. _If_ he were keeping score. It was possible Delly believed that setting Peeta up with someone who’d also just gotten out of a long-term relationship would ensure that they were both on equal footing. But Peeta could still go the rest of his life without hearing the name _Marvel_ ever again.

 

After dinner, they’d gone back to his place to watch a movie on the couch. Not ten minutes later, Glimmer crawled into his lap in a straddling position, her hands cradling the back of his head, fingers buried in the soft curls there. Her eyes were little pools of midnight. She wanted him. She said so. She told him that she wanted him to _literally_ fuck her brains out. And with that, the umpire was sending her off the plate, ending the inning that ended the game. Peeta laughed in her face. He hadn’t meant to. He just couldn’t erase the unintentionally hilarious mental image those words created. Any arousal he’d felt had disappeared by then. He knew that if he’d been interested, he could have spun some lie, charmed her into resuming what she was doing. He didn’t. She slid off his lap then, and smoothed the wrinkles out of her slinky black dress. Even before she was out the door, complaining of a headache, he knew for sure he’d never see this woman again. He was okay with that.

 

“And before you tell me you’re not interested,” Delly continued, “just hear me out. Cecelia has three kids of her own, all boys, so she’d be good with Max. She’d be good for you too, I just know it.”

 

Peeta raked his free hand through his hair and sighed. “I’ll think about it, Dell, okay?”

 

“She’s divorced too, and she’s just the nicest person, Peeta. After everything she’s been through, she deserves someone like you. Her ex is such a rat. She invested seventeen years of her life with him, gave him three children, and always worked her tail off keeping her figure nice. She goes to the gym four days a week and she’s even sworn off refined sugar completely. And you know what he did? On her 37th birthday, he ran off with his 22 year-old secretary, like he’s Don Draper or something. I’m telling you, Peeta, she needs a good guy like y—”

 

“ _Stop_.” He couldn’t hear anymore. It was all making his stomach churn. Every cell in his body felt weighted down. Just that morning he’d been thinking about _hope_ , clinging to it desperately like a life preserver. Actually believing that he deserved a shot at happiness with someone. A few short months ago he would have jumped at the chance to meet this woman. But now all he could think about was Katniss. Every time he closed his eyes it was all he could do not to hear her voice, smell her skin, imagine the taste of her mouth, the feel of her body underneath his. “Just stop, Delly,” he said, sounding so tired even to his own ears. “You’re going to have to set her up with someone else. It can’t be me.” He was no better than the rat of an ex husband.

 

“What? But I don’t understa—”

 

“I make cakes for a living,” he said with a light laugh, forcing away any trace of the guilt that corroded his insides. “And you’re trying to fix me up with someone who doesn’t eat sugar? It’d never work.”

 

Delly sounded disappointed, but she let the subject drop. The rest of the conversation was fairly benign. And one-sided. “Mary Jane just passed her road test.” “Thom bought me the most beautiful garnet earrings for our anniversary.” “The Barefoot Contessa taught me how to make my own dill pickles.” Peeta preferred it this way. It was always easier hearing about someone else's life than facing his own.

 

His morning had started off well: helping Katniss get to school, their talk on the way there. But as the day wore on, it quickly deteriorated.

 

After having dropped Katniss off, Peeta came home to find a message on the answering machine from his ex-wife, her sharp voice shouting the kind of invectives that, had he not been so desensitized to it by now, might have burrowed beneath his thick skin and stung him.

 

To be fair, her anger wasn’t completely uncalled-for this time. He’d shown Max _The Muppet Movie_ during their last visit. As a result, Max developed a deep, spiritual connection with Animal, even banging on rocks with sticks pretending they were drums. So when Mr. Templesmith across the street was disposing of his banged-up but perfectly usable drumset, Peeta couldn’t resist. An unsuspecting Cato had even let Peeta inside to assemble it in Max’s playroom. It was educational, Peeta argued when Clove made her displeasure known. Making music was a much better use of their son’s time than playing video games or demolishing the never-ending supply of toys that Clove provided. Of course, that small, petty part of Peeta that reminded him that he was indeed his mother’s son reveled in the nuisance his gift caused Clove, paying her back for the Disney World stunt she’d pulled a few weeks back. It hadn’t been Peeta’s finest moment and he knew it. Now even _he_ was using his son as a pawn, and he hated himself for it. When his best friend called shortly thereafter, he mistakenly thought it would make him feel better.

 

Once he got off the phone with Delly, the next several hours were spent burying himself in bakery-related paperwork. For dinner he made himself a sandwich and ate it over the kitchen sink. He watched _Food Network_ reruns until the sun went down.

 

When Peeta picked Katniss up that night he asked her how her classes had gone and she told him they were fine. After that he didn't know what else to say. He'd never been at a loss for words before. But maybe it was the way her obvious discomfort radiated from her like a warning that made even small-talk an impossibility, her body angled away from him toward her window and pressed as close to the passenger door as she could get. She looked like she was preparing to escape. As if one wrong word or too-forward gesture and she'd open her door and tuck and roll right there on the highway. He gripped the steering wheel a little tighter with both hands. They stayed that way the entire drive, in silence. He'd forgotten to offer her the radio and she hadn't asked.

 

A row of modest houses, all nearly identical except in color, lined Katniss's street. With each house that he passed, he could feel his pulse speeding up. As uncomfortable as the drive had been, he wasn't looking forward to returning to his empty home. He rolled to a stop in Haymitch's driveway and idled the car to let Katniss out. She mumbled a hurried thank-you before bolting from the vehicle, shutting the door behind her before he could even utter so much as a you're welcome or goodnight. He was about to drive off when he remembered the paper bag of bread that he'd put in the backseat. He'd almost forgotten all about it. The majority of the unsold product from his bakery went to food pantries, though he’d usually save a little aside one day a week for his neighbor. He hadn’t lately. Not since his encounter with Katniss at Haymitch’s door. This wasn’t even from the bakery; these he baked late last night when he could neither sleep nor quiet his restless mind. With the car still running, he stepped outside and called out to her before she reached the front steps.

 

She turned to look at him and he held up the bag as if to answer her unspoken question. “I owe your uncle some bread,” he told her. The light from the full moon overhead made her narrowed eyes blaze like molten silver, causing his breath to catch in his throat and linger there before he could exhale. But her next words knocked the wind out of him completely:

 

“You should come in. Give it to him yourself.”

 

“You sure?” he asked, eyebrows lodged somewhere near his hairline. Katniss had seemed so intent on getting away from him earlier. The change of heart honestly baffled him.

 

“Uncle Haymitch mentioned you the other day,” she added, as if reading his mind. “He doesn't really have any other visitors.”

 

And with that, Peeta knew there was no way he could possibly refuse.

 

Haymitch's front yard was in considerably better condition than the back. The grass was mostly dead thanks to a large maple tree that blocked out all the sunlight, and a few scraggly shrubs guarded the front porch, but at least it looked relatively tidy. The house itself, an L-shaped, one-storey ranch topped with broken, tawny shingles, had clearly seen better days. The front door sported a rancid shade of green paint that matched the shutters and the dented entrance to the garage, and was curling away from the wood at the bottom. Flakes of it drifted to the ground as Katniss led Peeta inside.

 

The front hall led directly to the kitchen on a worn path of dingy vinyl tiles. And there was Haymitch sitting at the table cradling a chipped mug in both hands. He didn't acknowledge them in any way, just stared heavy-lidded down at whatever he was drinking. He'd lost some weight since Peeta saw him last, though the potbelly still remained. He didn't know how old the man actually was, but by looking at him Peeta would guess he was in his mid-sixties. Maybe even older. His skin was leathery and lightly spotted, his face covered by a scraggly salt-and-pepper beard and topped with thin, greasy hair combed sideways across his head. The gray t-shirt he wore had some sort of faded brown stain on the front of it, with both sleeves frayed at the ends and tiny holes speckling it throughout. Peeta's greeting went unanswered. Instead, Haymitch looked up at Katniss with bloodshot eyes. “Where've _you_ been?”

 

“School,” she answered evenly. “Like always.” She paced the kitchen as if she were inspecting it for something and then turned her attention back toward her uncle. “Have you eaten?” No answer. “All you had to do was heat it up.”

 

Haymitch mumbled something unintelligible in reply.

 

Katniss didn't respond, either because she didn't understand what he'd said or didn't care, and made her way to the avocado green refrigerator and opened the door with such force that Peeta could hear the rattling of glass and plastic slamming against each other inside. Haymitch rolled his eyes before taking another gulp of his drink. Katniss had started dumping the contents of a large plastic storage container into a pot on the stove. Peeta kept his eyes on the back of her head, her braid swaying gently as she moved, and at her hands as they busied themselves with preparation, not allowing his gaze to travel any lower. But all the same, he watched with rapt attention as her slim fingers gripped the wooden spoon she used to stir the pot, before tearing his eyes away from her altogether.

 

“So” Peeta said to Haymitch. “It's been awhile. Katniss says you missed my company. Or maybe you just missed the bread.”

 

“It's better than whatever the girl's putting together, anyway.”

 

“What – are your arms broken or something?” Katniss snapped. She slammed the wooden spoon down on the counter and whipped around to face them. The pot bubbled behind her. “Because I'm pretty sure you could be making your own dinner right now. I know I have better things I could be doing instead of feeding you.”

 

“Well, whatever you're making smells delicious,” Peeta called out to her. “Your uncle is very lucky to have you around.” He shot Haymitch a pointed look. It hadn't gone unnoticed how much Katniss's presence had improved Haymitch's living conditions – the clutter, the dirty dishes, the garbage, the odor. And she was apparently preparing his meals on top of that.  
  


Haymitch sighed raggedly. “Just hurry up with it, whatever it is, and I'll eat it,” he said, less gruffly than normal.

 

Katniss's eyes softened and flickered with something Peeta suspected was astonishment. He couldn't be sure, of course, but that may have been the nicest Haymitch has been to her since she arrived.

 

She brought out a serrated knife and a cutting board for the bread, and Peeta began removing the loaves – one a fluffy country white and the other a dense multigrain – from the paper bag. As he sliced a few pieces of the white, Katniss retrieved two spoons from a drawer, shutting it with a gentle swish of her hips, a move that he found so effortlessly sexy that he had to look away from her.

 

There wasn’t much else to look at, unfortunately. The kitchen walls were blank, nothing but drywall, as if Haymitch had ripped away what was once there and made no effort to put anything, even a coat of simple white paint, up in its place. In an upper corner peeking out from behind the refrigerator was a strip of pale yellow wallpaper. There was just enough showing that he could make out the print: quarter-sized marigolds that alternated in color from mustard to pumpkin to brick red. It was a bit dated, like something out of his childhood. Nevertheless, he wondered why Haymitch considered drywall a better alternative.

 

Katniss came back to the table a moment later with the spoons and two heavy ceramic soup bowls and ladled what she'd been making into them both. Peeta was about to excuse himself and head home so she and Haymitch could eat dinner in peace, but Katniss surprised him by setting one of the bowls in front of him, where he’s been standing rather awkwardly all this time. The other bowl went to Haymitch.

 

“You sure?” Peeta asked her. “What about you?”

 

She shook her head dismissively. “I'm fine,” she said. “Here.” She gestured for him to sit down. “Just try it at least.”

 

Haymitch, meanwhile, was stirring his spoon into his still-full bowl but had yet to actually eat anything. Peeta handed a slice of the white bread to Haymitch, who pinched off a tiny section and ate it slowly, as if the small act took a great amount of effort.

 

Peeta took a seat and inspected his own bowl. It was a thick, fragrant stew with generous chunks of beef and fat slices of carrots and celery and onion. And when he tasted it, he found the meat and vegetables to be tender and well-seasoned. She was obviously a better cook than Haymitch gave her credit. Still, it felt funny eating in front of her. He supposed she could have eaten at school. Ultimately, it was none of his business, he decided. She was an adult. If she wanted to eat right now, she would’ve served herself. “This is excellent,” he told her after another spoonful.

 

Katniss was still standing, hovering near the seat next to his. “Really?” she asked. “It’s okay?”

 

“Of course.”

 

Worry etched Katniss’s features. She absently trailed her hand over the space where it appeared a landline telephone had once been. No one had bothered to patch the holes in the wall.

 

By the time Peeta was finished, Katniss had asked a few more times before she was sufficiently satisfied that he had liked it. She never asked Haymitch, who, as far as Peeta had seen, hadn’t eaten a mouthful of his. When Katniss was busy depositing Peeta’s empty bowl in the dishwasher, Haymitch slinked off to bed. If this surprised Katniss upon returning to the table, she gave no indication. She just slipped into the seat that her uncle had vacated, shoveling the abandoned stew in her mouth like she hadn’t seen food all day.

 

“You made this?” Peeta wanted to know.

 

“Mmm-hmm,” she answered with a shrug and a full mouth. “The canned kind isn't good for him. Too much salt.”

 

“I'm sorry he didn't eat it.”

 

“I think he dipped some of the bread in it, at least.” She dejectedly poked at a piece of carrot with her spoon. “I just don’t know how to…” She trailed off and ate more of her stew rather than completing her thought.

 

“You don’t know how to what?” he asked gently after awhile.

 

She refused to look him in the eye. “Nothing. Forget I said anything.”

 

In the distance, the battered, green dishwasher droned steadily. Peeta shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I should probably get going.”

 

“Thanks again for the ride,” she said softly, her gaze meeting his briefly before traveling down toward the bread, then back up at Peeta. “That stuff’s pretty good. Even Haymitch ate some.”

 

Remembering Katniss’s words outside, the reason he came in the house in the first place, because up until then he’d just assumed that Haymitch barely tolerated him, he asked her, “Earlier, you said he mentioned me?”

 

“Yeah. He said, ‘that goddamn Mormon hasn’t been around in awhile’.”

 

“And that’s me?”

 

“That’s you.”

 

“Not that it matters, but I’m not actually –”

 

“No, I think he just says it because you’re blond and friendly,” Katniss answered immediately, appearing relaxed for the first time that day.

 

“And not that there’s anything _wrong_ with being –”

 

“Right, right,” Katniss cut him off, nodding in agreement.

 

They were quiet again, and Peeta stood. “I really should get going.”

 

Katniss stood as well, the chair scraping noisily against the floor tiles as she pushed away from it. Her hands were shoved in her pockets, and her eyes caught his briefly before they became fixed on the table. “Do you, uh…do you think you’ll be back soon?”

 

After that, his visits became routine.

 

Katniss was still as confusing to him as ever; he hadn't figured out whether she actually enjoyed his company or if his coming over was strictly for Haymitch's sake. Even still, there were worse ways to spend his time.

 

“How is Haymitch related to you?” he had asked her one day. They were at the kitchen counter chopping carrots side by side, when it occurred to him how little he knew about her.

 

“My dad's brother,” she'd told him, eyes trained on the blade while her slim fingers worked the knife with practiced ease.

 

“So that would make you Katniss Abernathy?”

 

“Everdeen. He and my dad were half brothers.”

 

It continued to bother Peeta how little he knew about his neighbor. He’d had no idea that he had a brother – or any family at all until Katniss arrived – and he may never have found much out if it weren't for the fact that he wanted to get to know the man's niece. _Get to know,_ he thought bitterly. Who was he kidding? He wasn't interested in learning her favorite color; he wanted to have sex with her. He could at least be honest with himself about that. Except that the more he dropped by, the more he enjoyed just being with Katniss. Talking, cleaning the kitchen in companionable silence, showing her how to make a proper crust for the chicken pot pie she was preparing for the next night's dinner. The intense attraction was still there, but as long as Peeta didn’t let it show, his feelings were irrelevant. His private thoughts, after all, the kind that he reluctantly indulged in on lonely nights when he couldn’t sleep, were his own.

 

Before long, Katniss dismantled part of the fence that separated their yards, clearing a straight path between the two houses. “You can just come in through the back,” she explained. “That door's always unlocked when I'm home anyway.”

 

He was there nearly every day. On days he spent at the bakery, he’d show up after work, at eight or nine or so at night, with loaves of bread that Katniss usually toasted the next morning for breakfast. Or turned to croutons or stuffing for a future meal. Even though he frequently arrived long after dinner was over, Katniss always had a plate waiting for him in the microwave. On his day off, when it wasn’t his weekend with Max, Peeta would bake something at home to take to his neighbors sometime in the afternoon. Katniss was never particularly forthcoming about what she liked, but one time Haymitch let it slip that the buns with cheese baked on top were her favorite. So Peeta made it a point to include some every time he dropped by. Tonight's haul from the bakery contained some of those, plus a pumpernickel loaf and another baked with sesame and fennel seeds.

 

The air inside the house was heavy with the smell of cleaning products, with just the slightest hint of decay, prompting Peeta to open a window. Haymitch, as usual, didn’t object, as he sat in his spot on the couch watching a muted television tuned to CNN. His fingers were like a vice around a metal flask that he clutched possessively to his chest, as if worried about it being stolen. Peeta left the bread on the kitchen table and joined Haymitch in the living room, stepping onto a rust-colored carpet stained and crusted with something that evidently not even the carpet cleaner stationed in the corner could get out.

 

“She’s not here,” Haymitch announced, eyes still fixed on the TV. He took a long drink from his flask.

 

“Now, is that any way to greet your favorite neighbor?” Peeta teased, leaning against the side of the couch.

 

“Don’t act like you’ve been showing up so often to see _me_ ,” Haymitch said, to which Peeta replied that he’d been coming to visit well before Katniss moved in.

 

“I’ll bet you brought more of those cheese things the girl likes,” Haymitch continued. “The last batch didn’t look very stale to me.”

 

“Would you prefer it if they were?” Peeta asked, becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the interrogation.

 

Another swig. “Just an observation.”

 

“You know, the bread I brought _you_ wasn’t stale either,” Peeta pointed out.

 

“Hmm.” Haymitch took a thoughtful sip. “Can’t imagine why you’re going out of business.”

 

The comment got to him, much more than Peeta would ever let on. He’d recently had to let go several of his employees, making him the bakery’s only baker and decorator. His teenage nieces now helped out before and after school a few days a week with basic prep work, though only because their guidance counselor assured them that it would count toward the community service hours required for graduation. Peeta put in fourteen-hour days six days a week, and often returned home with throbbing temples and a twitching eye. And the bakery was still hemorrhaging funds.

 

About a million caustic replies sat perched on his tongue, but Peeta wasn’t about to argue with an old man on a threadbare couch half-watching the news and gripping a container of booze like it would keep him alive. Instead, he masked his hurt with a good-natured grin. “Uh-huh,” he said. “A few loaves each week are what’s keeping me in the red. That’s kind of why I’m here. I’ve upped my prices. I’m afraid I’m going to have to retroactively bill you for all the bread I’ve been giving you. That was $1,000 worth of pumpernickel rye you ate the other day.”

 

Haymitch gave a wheezy laugh that turned into a cough. He jerked his head toward the television. “Before you barged in here I was trying to watch these idiots argue in circles about how our country’s going down the tubes.”

 

“And you can tell all that without the sound?” He took a seat next to Haymitch.

 

“Don’t need it. Every day it’s the same thing.”

 

They sat there in silence for awhile, Peeta’s eyes trained on the text-crawl at the bottom of the screen, becoming so accustomed to the quiet that the sudden sound of Haymitch’s voice caused him to startle slightly. “She’s a good kid,” Haymitch said. “Been through a lot. More than anyone her age should.” Then, though he didn’t need to, the serious expression in Haymitch’s bloodshot eyes sending the message all on its own, he added: “Just remember that.”

 

The implied warning in those words chilled the blood coursing through Peeta’s veins. Somewhere in that haze of alcohol and unhappiness Haymitch must have seen the way Peeta looked at Katniss. How _often_ he looked at Katniss. Any gesture of kindness on Peeta’s part must have seemed awfully hollow if Haymitch believed that Peeta was interested in taking advantage of her. There wasn’t much more said that night, and Peeta made sure to leave before Katniss came home from wherever she was.

 

That night, like so many before it, Peeta lay awake in his too-large bed in his too-empty house unable to sleep. Usually he’d take himself in his hand and let visions of smooth olive skin and the memory of a raw, sultry voice bring him to a peak that he’s only reached alone for nearly a year. And once his heart rate would calm down, he’d drift off to sleep. It was as good as any sedative. But tonight he felt even guiltier than usual. It was no use, though. He was even starting to tent his boxer-briefs in anticipation. Yes, he needed the release, but he was going to have to get it another way.

 

At first he focused on the sensation of his hand against the hot, sensitive flesh beneath it, but without any additional stimulation he felt himself beginning to deflate, while his mind and body continued to buzz incessantly. He tried to think back on the last woman he was attracted to before Katniss. There was the redhead who worked at the bookstore that was once next to the bakery, her long coppery eyelashes framing dark blue eyes. Creamy skin disappearing beneath a snug blouse that clung to the swells of her breasts. It wasn’t working, so he tried switching tactics. The last time he had sex was mostly a drunken, fuzzy, wholly unmemorable encounter. That wouldn’t work either. He let his eyes shut tightly and tried to conjure up _something_. Nameless, faceless products of his imagination. Anything but her.

 

“Oh, fuck it,” he muttered under his breath. Obviously touching _her_ was out of the question, but there was no reason to keep from touching himself. If denying his urges made him crazy, maybe fully giving in to them in the dark could make them eventually go away. With each stroke, he let the waves of bliss settle through him as he pictured her above him, pinned beneath, pressed against the tiles of his shower, bent over the side of his couch. The gray in her eyes nearly swallowed up with black. Her dark hair wild and free of the confines of its braid. All that blistering longing became so palpable that in that moment he didn’t think he’d ever wanted anything in his life as much as he wanted her. His cock swelled in his hand and with a strangled cry he released onto his stomach.

 

Coming down from his high, the cloud of lust began to dissipate, making way for things like guilt and overwhelming loneliness to creep back in. He was only torturing himself by fantasizing about something that would never happen. More than just the age difference, which was inappropriate enough, after his conversation with Haymitch, this _couldn’t_ happen.

 

He cleaned himself off using his sticky hand and then punched the wall beside his bed.

 

* * *

 

 

After that night, he managed to avoid Katniss for four days. He couldn’t even face Haymitch. On those nights, he came straight home from work, exhausted and shaking with stress, and intermittently watched infomercials between brief bouts of sleep, then got up before the sun had even risen to do it all over again.

 

The sound of knocking against the back door startled him awake on the fifth night. With bleary eyes and unstable legs, he dragged himself from the couch, where he’d accidentally dozed off in front of the television, to the source of all the noise.

 

When he got there, Katniss was scowling up at him, looking inexplicably lovely in a baggy Capitol U sweatshirt and jeans. “I thought maybe you’d died,” she said as soon as he slid open the door.

 

“Hey.” He stifled a yawn. “What can I do for you, Katniss?”

 

She held up a transparent storage container with something red-brown piled inside. “I brought you some leftovers.” The gesture was so sweet, yet so incongruent with the expression on her face, he couldn't help but grin at her.

 

She didn't smile back.

 

Dinner one night over at chez Abernathy had been a spicy gumbo consisting of sliced andouille sausage and kidney beans with chopped celery and onions and red bell peppers served over long grain rice, Katniss told him. That’s what she brought over. It sounded a hell of a lot better than the cheese sandwich on stale bread that he’d made for himself forty-five minutes earlier when he got home. “Oh, Katniss… I don’t know what to say. Thank you. You really didn’t have to do this.”

 

“You come over with food all the time. I owe you,” she told him. The tight line of her mouth quivered ever-so-slightly. “I made this yesterday, actually,” she confessed. “You could have had it fresh if you'd come over. I’m really glad you’re not dead, by the way,” she added bitterly.

 

“Yeah, well, that makes one of us.” The flippant remark fled from Peeta's mouth without permission, and Katniss's eyes widened, horrified, for just an instant. “Sorry,” he said, drowsily scratching the back of his head, fighting off another yawn. “I was just sleeping.” As if that explained anything at all. He side-stepped to the right to unblock the doorway. “Did you want to come in?”

 

Katniss moved right past him into the kitchen. “Where do you want this?” she asked, stopping at the refrigerator. Magneted to the front of it was a landscape created from uncooked tri-color rotini glued to construction paper depicting a buttery yellow sun overlooking pale red-orange trees and surrounded by green grass, Max’s name scrawled sloppily in crayon at the upper left-hand corner. Peeta had mentioned his son to Katniss in passing, but for the most part their conversations were relatively superficial. Telling him her last name was about the most personal Katniss had gotten with him.

 

“I'll take it,” Peeta said, gratefully accepting the container of food from her and then putting it in the fridge for tomorrow. “Did you want anything to drink?” With the refrigerator door still open, he began listing what was available, but stopped when his eyes landed on the bottles of Sam Adams on the top shelf. It only served to remind him of how young she was, how little he knew about her. He had no idea if she could legally drink the stuff.

 

Saving him the trouble of asking, Katniss cleared her throat. “Water's fine.”

 

He retrieved two glasses and the tray of ice cubes, but when he turned back toward Katniss she was glowering at him. “What's the matter?” he asked her.

 

“Your freezer.”

 

“What about it?”

 

“There’s hardly anything in there. Just frozen peas and dinosaur nuggets.” She crossed her arms tightly across her chest, narrowing her gray eyes at him.

 

“And that's a problem?” He plunked two ice cubes into each of the glasses and filled them with water from the sink.

 

“You told me your freezer was full of bread.”

 

Oh. He winced internally, having forgotten all about the lie he told her all those weeks ago. “I don’t actually take it home, no. I donate most of the leftovers to charity.”

 

She leveled him with a glare. “So is that what my uncle and I are to you? Another charity?”

 

“Of course not,” he said adamantly. “I keep bringing you bread because I like you. And your uncle. Maybe I went about it all wrong, but I just...I'm just trying to help, Katniss. And before you tell me that you don’t need my help,” he added, noting the way Katniss’s mouth opened, primed to yell, “keep in mind that you’re the one who asked me inside that night. And to keep coming back. It sounds like whatever issues you’ve been having with Haymitch, you needed me.” Peeta handed Katniss her drink. They stared at each other for a moment before she finally accepted it. The hostility in her features slowly ebbed away.

 

“You're pretty much Haymitch’s only friend, you know,” she said at last. “That's why I got in the car with you that day. Plus, you know...exam. I guess it was worth possibly getting murdered.”

 

He laughed unexpectedly. “What – by me?”

 

She gave a non-committal one shouldered shrug.

 

“Are you still afraid of me, Katniss?” he asked softly.

 

At this, Katniss rolled her eyes. “I was never actually afraid of you.” But her reddening cheeks and the aversion of her gaze seemed to belie her words. She took a sip of her water, still not looking at him.

 

He took a tentative step toward her so that his bare toes and the tips of her sneakers were just a hairsbreadth away from each other. The proximity caused Katniss to look up suddenly. Her eyes locked onto his. “Katniss?”

 

“You say my name a lot.”

 

“And you've never said mine.” _What'll it take to get you to say it?_ That’s what he wanted to ask her. But it was way too forward. There were too many scenarios forcing their way into his head in which Katniss did say his name, over and over again. The lingering silence between them felt electric. The heat of her breath against him sparked at his skin.

 

And then Katniss stepped away. “Peeta,” she said, rolling her eyes again and barely suppressing a grin. “There. I said it. Happy now?”

 

Not even close. Moments like these were the reason he’d been avoiding her. She had no idea how she was affecting him. But _he_ knew one thing for sure: he was such a selfish asshole. He certainly wasn’t the good guy Delly thought he was. If Haymitch and Katniss counted on him being around, if they really did need him, then he shouldn’t have let anything stop him.

 

This infatuation with Katniss would run its course. Like with that woman from the bookstore, Lavinia. He could be friends with Lavinia if he ran into her now without any of the awkwardness or desperation to impress her that plagued all of their interactions in the past. It could eventually be the same with Katniss. He just had to try harder. Get to know her. Separate the real Katniss from the fantasy.

 

Drinks in hand, they made their way past the kitchen’s ceramic tiles to a sea of beige carpeting. Katniss ghosted her fingertips over the living room wall. “Pretty color,” she said softly. He’d long been unaffected by people’s opinions of something as trivial as one’s interior decorating, but hearing this praise from _Katniss_ , something akin to pride bloomed inside him.

 

Within months of moving in, Peeta made a point of putting his own stamp on the first house he’d ever lived in by himself. He came home from the hardware store one day with two cans of what the paint company called Venetian Stucco, a pale orange, nearly yellow, like candlelight. The same color that would rim an indigo sky just before the last sliver of sunlight vanished off the edge. Neither Clove nor his mother would have approved of orange walls. In spite of that, maybe _because_ of that, he made sure nearly every room in his house greeted him with faux sunshine. He never got around to hanging anything on the walls, but that didn’t matter. The color alone was enough to announce to visitors that this was _his_ place.

 

He extended his index finger toward the wall beside her. “If someone were to ask me my favorite color, that's probably it.”

 

“If they were ever inside your house they'd never have to ask,” Katniss retorted.

 

“You’ve got a point,” he conceded with a laugh. “You know, you’ve been in my house for all of five minutes and already you know more about me than I know about you. So how about we level the playing field a bit?”

 

“You want to know my favorite color?” she asked incredulously.

 

“I want to know _you_.” He took a seat on the far end of the couch and Katniss sat directly in the center, with her body angled toward him, crossing her legs and balancing her drink on her knee. “Anything you feel comfortable telling me,” he added.

 

“I like green”

 

“You see? Now don’t you feel better after baring your soul like that?”

 

Katniss gave a scoffing little laugh without an accompanying smile, but slowly, she began to open up. She had a mother and sister who lived a few hours away. Her sister Primrose – or “Prim” as Katniss would continue to refer to her – was sixteen, a high school junior whose passion for animal rights rivaled that of Katniss’s passion for cheese buns. The way Katniss spoke of her, one would think Prim was her daughter rather than her sister. She said very little of her mother. Nothing about her father. In the little over two hours that they spent talking, Peeta learned that Katniss liked to hunt, that she ran track in high school, that her twenty-first birthday wasn’t until May. He told her stories about his son, about going to baseball games with his father as a child, about how he’d lived in Texas until he was nine years old until the family moved here, where his father started the very bakery that Peeta now owned.

 

The longer they talked, the smaller the space between them on the couch became. After awhile, Katniss’s head drooped onto Peeta’s shoulder, and he knew she’d fallen asleep. It was almost midnight. In another four hours he’d have to leave for the bakery. “Katniss?” He gently shook her awake. “Hey there, sleepyhead. I guess that’s what happens when you spend too much time listening to me talk. Almost as effective as counting sheep.”

 

“Hmm?” She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “That’s not true. What time is it?”

 

“About twelve.”

 

“Shit!” She bolted upright. “I have to get home. Were we really talking that long?”

 

He nodded. “This was really nice,” he added.

 

He saw her out the back door, and just as she stepped into the darkness she stopped, turning back in his direction. “You’re coming over tomorrow, right?” she asked.

 

“I will, Katniss. I promise.”

 

“Good.” She moved in the direction of her own house before halting again. “Oh, and Peeta? You owe us like a dozen cheese buns now.”


	3. Chapter 3

Every night, Peeta appeared at his neighbors’ door with bread and cheese buns, greeted with steaming bowls of stew or pasta or chili in return. The routine quickly became a source of comfort to him. But bundled with the companionship he’d begun to relish and the hot meals were Katniss and Haymitch’s arguments, rapidly increasing in their regularity. The instant Peeta would open his back door, the sound of their raised voices wafted toward him like a poisonous fog, abruptly stopping once Peeta arrived. They never spoke of it, carrying on as if nothing had happened.

On one occasion, their fight was so loud Peeta could clearly make out what they were saying as he trekked across their yards.

“…only cared about the money!” came Katniss’s voice.

“I never wanted a red cent of it,” Haymitch countered with equal intensity. “I keep trying to give you girls the blasted money!”

“I don’t _want_ the money. You weren’t supposed to sell it. Now some other family’s living there…”

“I hope the damn place burns to the ground so I don’t have to keep hearing about it!”

The next sounds Peeta heard before letting himself in were shattering glass and a slamming door. Once inside, the acrid stench of liquor assaulted him. A bottle lay in wet shards in the kitchen sink. Haymitch sat on the couch nearly inhaling in the contents of his flask. Katniss was nowhere to be found. The only sign of her was the sound of the nearby bathroom faucet running. She returned several minutes later with puffy, bloodshot eyes that refused to meet Peeta’s for the rest of the night.

Most evenings weren’t as intense. He’d walk in mid-bicker, they’d stop, he’d eat. Haymitch frequently went to bed early, leaving Peeta alone with Katniss, and Peeta would give his best imitation of someone whose blood _wasn’t_ screaming beneath his skin at the sight of her. Those were good nights.

Tonight wasn’t.

Katniss and Haymitch were at it again. Peeta stood at the back entrance, fingers frozen around the door handle. He debated whether to turn right back around and go home, fall asleep on his couch in front of an old episode of _House_.

“So why am I even here then?” Peeta heard her yell. It sounded like she and her uncle were in the living room.

“Feel free to leave any time, sweetheart.”

“Uh-huh. My car won't start. So how do you suggest I do that?”

“Your legs broken?”

“ _Seriously_? And I have class in the morning, by the way, and I have no idea how I’m getting there.”

Peeta sighed and slid the door open, stepping through the kitchen where he left a bag of cheese buns and a sourdough loaf on the table, and straight into the battle taking place in the next room. He stopped at the end of the couch where Haymitch sat clutching his flask while Katniss paced back and forth in front of it, as if working off all the excess anger.

For once, Haymitch appeared unaffected by both Peeta’s presence and Katniss’s words. “What happened to those friends of yours? Their cars won't start either?”

Katniss halted. She wrapped and unwrapped the end of her braid around her thumb, not acknowledging Peeta either. “Johanna doesn't have hers right now,” she said, her voice much smaller. “And I can't get a hold of Madge.”

“How 'bout that other one?”

 _Who_?”

Haymitch closed his eyes and clumsily snapped his fingers. “Tall, dark...what's-his-name.”

“Who – _Gale_? He lives on the opposite side of the country. Jesus, you _know_ that.”

“I’d offer you a ride,” Peeta cut in apologetically, finally getting both of their attention, “but I have to be at the bakery before sunrise. Hi, Katniss. Haymitch.”

“Hi,” Katniss muttered. She gave him a weak smile. “That’s okay. I’ll just get notes from someone.”

Haymitch, meanwhile, struggled for something in his pocket, finally retrieving his wallet and threw it toward her where it bounced off the carpet. “Get the damn thing fixed.”

“No!” Katniss made no move toward the wallet. “I'm not taking more of your money than I have to. I'll get it fixed when I can pay for it.”

“I'm also paying for you to _go_ to school. Not sit around with me all day or entertaining _him_.” Haymitch jerked his head toward Peeta.

The mention of his name dissolved the self-imposed boundary that had been keeping Peeta from interfering in their dispute. He bent down to grab Haymitch’s wallet and shoved it back into the man’s hand. “This is going to stop,” he said. “Right now. Whatever your issues are, screaming at each other isn’t getting you anywhere. You two are going to figure this thing out like the adults you are, so I suggest you – where are you going?”

Haymitch had stretched and pushed himself up off the couch. “It’s my own damn house. I’ll go wherever I damn well want. You and the girl have fun working this out yourselves. I’m going to bed.”

Peeta tightened his fingers into a fist at his side, resisting the urge to shove his neighbor back into his seat. “Whatever you’re arguing about is still going to be waiting for you in the morning, you know.”

“And I’m praying to whatever deity might be listening that I expire in my sleep,” Haymitch fired back, taking pained-looking steps across the room.

“Quit being so fucking morbid,” Katniss called after him, to no response.

Once Haymitch was gone, Katniss led Peeta into the kitchen and pulled dinner from the microwave. “It’s a pretty simple solution, Katniss,” he was telling her as they sat together at the table between creamy bites of macaroni made with sharp cheddar and American cheese, and not the neon orange powder that came in the boxes that Max preferred.

“I can't afford to get it fixed right now,” she reminded him.

“Okay. So, if your car won't start after it's rained and you're not able to repair it, you know what you need to do? You need to keep the rain off of it.”

“With what? A car-sized umbrella?” she quipped.

Peeta leaned forward, unaffected by Katniss's sarcasm. “You told me there wasn't enough room in the garage. Just how bad is it?”

 

* * *

 

He'd been expecting a mess. General disarray. Not this. This wasn't a garage; it was wall-to-wall junk blanketed in dust. There was almost no room to walk let alone park a car. It was as overgrown as the backyard.

It was early Sunday morning, Peeta’s only day off, but he’d insisted on helping Katniss with this. It was far too big a job for just one person. Katniss tried to argue with him at first, telling him it wasn’t his problem, that he did enough for Haymitch and her and got so little in return. But on that point she was wrong. She had no idea how much spending time with them meant, but he didn’t tell her that, didn’t want to seem more pathetic than he already felt. “Tell you what,” he’d proposed a few nights earlier during dinner. “You make more of _this_ on Sunday,” he pointed his fork at the macaroni on his plate, “and we’ll call it even, okay?” Katniss had grumbled about it not being a fair trade, but gave in all the same.

Inside the garage, they were silent aside from the crunch their shoes made on the available surface, gritty with dirt and tracked-in leaves, as they stepped between waist-high stacks of boxes and everything else that couldn't be packed away. Pieces from an artificial Christmas tree were strewn everywhere. Cobwebs hung from every corner like canopies. There was an old spindle headboard by Peeta's feet. Four rusted bicycles stood beside it. An aluminum ladder leaned casually against the back wall and several sets of ratty shoes and boots sat obediently beneath it.

As Katniss hit a switch that sent the garage door sputtering and wheezing its way upward, Peeta clasped his hands together. “Okay,” he said. “Here's what we do. Everything that we want to donate goes in one pile on the driveway. Everything that needs to be thrown away gets taken to the curb. And Haymitch is okay with this, right? When you told him what we were doing?”

“He sort of grunted,” Katniss told him. “I took that as a yes.”

With that out of the way, they stepped around a labyrinth of plastic lawn furniture, and the enormity of the task began to feel overwhelming, threatening to crush Peeta’s resolve like an Acme anvil. It looked like an entire lifetime was crammed into one eighteen-by-twenty foot space. Nevertheless, he suggested that they start in opposite corners, working section by section, spending hours inspecting and sorting everything in their way.

While the neatly stacked boxes gave the impression of orderliness, Peeta opened each cardboard flap and was met with chaos. One box contained a jumble of dish towels and picture books and a slim wooden hairbrush with long dark hair still caught in its bristles. Stuffed animals surrounded a crystal gravy boat and a pair of periwinkle suede boots in another. And there were Lego pieces scattered in nearly _every_ box.

Eventually, he and Katniss met up in the middle, as Peeta began digging through a bin filled with sports equipment: balls and bats and mitts and pucks and sticks, some of which looked like they had never been used. When he looked up, where there'd been a small dresser with peeling cream-colored paint in front of him, he saw Katniss now obstructing its view, bending over to reach for something behind it. His body’s reaction to the sight was swift and scalding. He tried not to think of his hands gripping her hips, of how soft her bare skin would feel beneath them. Of her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth slightly parted.

The concave soccer ball in his hand fell to the ground. He hated himself so much in moments like these. But he took a deep breath, inhaling the musty garage air that not even the fresh autumn breeze let in from the open door could eliminate, then picked up the ball to focus on his own task, not glancing up at Katniss even once. Most of the sports equipment looked to be in good enough shape to donate, so he stuck what he could in the designated pile and moved on.

Leaning against the wall to his left was a deconstructed piece of furniture that Peeta at first mistook for another headboard. On closer look, though, he could clearly see what it used to be. A baby's crib. Reverently, he ran his knuckles over the cherry wood bars. He'd put one together much like it for his son. Peeta had always assumed that Haymitch had children, because of the pool and the swingset in the backyard, though in the years Peeta had been his neighbor, he’d never met Haymitch’s kids, and the man had certainly never mentioned them. He'd always assumed they were estranged. “Who did this belong to?” he called out in Katniss’s direction. After all, for all Peeta knew, much of this could have belonged to Katniss and her sister.

“Huh?” She was now crouched beside a box that apparently used to hold a television set but now contained clothing, moth-eaten and not even folded, just crumpled up in a compacted heap. Katniss leaned forward, pressing her knees into the filthy concrete, rifling through the piles of crinkled blouses and skirts and pill-y sweaters.

He shook his head. “It's okay. It's not important.” About to reach for the box of trash bags, something else caught his eye instead: a small yellow wicker basket. He picked it up, blew off the layer of dust, and inspected it further. It looked like the kind that would attach to the front of a bicycle. A plastic gerbera daisy adorned the front of it.

Katniss appeared beside him then. She gently ran the pad of one dirt-covered finger along the faded pink petals. “I never even…” she started to say, then stopped short. She shook her head as if to erase whatever she’d been about to share and took her hand off the basket, taking a step back.

“What is it?” he asked. “Was this yours?”

Her gaze fuzed with his, like a magnet on metal. “What? No. That wasn't mine.”

“Oh.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Does this belong to one of Haymitch's kids? _Does_ he have kids?” He regretted immediately the bluntness of his question. This was none of his business.

Katniss would have had every right to snap at him, call him out on his rudeness. She didn't, nodding instead. “He did,” she confirmed. “Two of them.”

Her use of the past-tense wasn't lost on Peeta. Neither were the hastily packed boxes filled with toys and clothes and objects that surely Haymitch's family would want were they still alive.

They’d cleaned enough of the garage that Sunday so that Katniss could park her car, a blue Pontiac Sunfire with red replacement doors and a rusted undercarriage. They didn’t speak of Haymitch’s family again, even as their belongings were hauled away to sit in either a dumpster or a thrift shop in the city.

 

* * *

 

A few days later, Peeta unexpectedly ran into Katniss at the grocery store, where she was inspecting a giant bag of off-brand puffed rice on the bottom shelf of the cereal aisle.

She looked up at him and eyed his red plastic grocery basket critically. “Do you ever buy any real food for yourself?”

“Well, hello to you too,” he said playfully, even as he stared down at the sad collection of items in his basket: a six-pack of beer, a block of cheese, and his son's favorite cereal. “You know, just because you have a cart full of produce doesn't give you license to act so superior.”

She took his teasing in stride, merrily pushing her shopping cart toward him. “Guess what?” she asked, then erupted with details about her sister Prim's upcoming visit that weekend. Prim didn't eat any animal products, so Katniss had made a list of Prim-friendly groceries to pick up. As she spoke, Peeta noticed something different about her, a radiance that wasn’t just from the harsh glow of the florescent lights that emanated from the store’s high ceiling. And then Peeta realized what it was. It was the first time he'd ever seen her smile. A _real_ smile, the kind that reached her eyes. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate the way she looked otherwise – he was actually a big fan of the scowl – but he also reveled in her obvious joy, and all it took was something as simple as an upcoming visit from her sister.

“Haymitch should be happy,” she continued. “He's always liked her better than me anyway.” She studied the crumpled list in her hands. “Now I just need to find almond milk.” She wrinkled her nose. “How do you milk an almond anyway?” she asked dryly.

Peeta stamped down the urge to embarrass them both with a lame joke about tiny almond udders.

“Hopefully this’ll keep everyone happy,” Katniss continued, looking pensive all of a sudden. The light had started to dim from her eyes. “Haymitch pretty much only eats toast these days. Sometimes soup. And tea if I can pry that flask away from him. I made sure to get Prim's cereal... Oh, and I found this recipe for vegetable soup that I think he and Prim will eat. And you,” she added a tad shyly. “Hopefully you’ll like it too.”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course,” he said. There was something suddenly bothering him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He glanced at the contents of Katniss’s cart again — carrots and celery, three pounds of red potatoes, cereal and tea and cans of broth, a box of silken tofu, plastic-wrapped packages of white button mushrooms, bags of dried beans. “So, which of this is yours?”

Her brows crinkled in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, everything that you've mentioned is for someone else. What are you getting that's just for you?”

“Oh. It's not like I'm _not_ going to eat this stuff, too…” She trailed off, appearing flustered.

What's your favorite food?” he asked. “And don’t tell me cheese buns. I already know you like those. What else do you like?”

“I don't know.” Her answer wasn’t sullen or defensive; she looked honestly perplexed by this line of questioning, as if this were something no one had ever thought to ask her. And it broke Peeta's heart.

“Sure you do,” he said gently. “What's the one thing you like more than anything else?”

She cocked her head to the side, mulling it over. “Grandma Everdeen used to make this lamb stew when I was a kid,” she finally said. “I don't remember much, only that it had dried plums and she served it over wild rice. Whenever we came to visit, she always made that the first day.”

“You’re a good cook,” he encouraged her. “Have you ever considered trying to replicate it?”

Katniss shrugged. “I'm all right, I guess. But that's more complicated than the stuff I usually make. Haymitch won't eat it, anyway. And Prim eat a cute little lamb? That'll never happen.”

“And you can’t make it sometime just because you want it?”

“That’d be kind of a waste.”

“You really think doing something for yourself is a waste?”

“He won’t eat it,” she snapped. “He won’t eat _any_ of her recipes, so there’s no point. And I probably couldn’t make it right anyway.”

“Katniss...”

“Look,” she said. “I've gotta go to the back of the store. I'll see you later, okay?” She hastily pushed her cart away from him without giving him a chance to respond.

He knew better than to go after her, knew that she needed her space. So he watched her leave, sadness and affection and concern churning inside of him as she turned the corner out of sight.

 

**Author's Note:**

> thebluelake, I got super carried away by your brilliant prompt, wrote way too much for my own good, and didn't finish in time. I ended it here because it seemed like the most natural stopping point (Plus, I think it works as a stand-alone piece), but I'll post the rest in the form of a sequel after the authors are revealed. Just know that I loved writing your story so much and couldn't let it go. 
> 
> Thank you, B, for being an amazing and helpful beta!
> 
> Thank you, angylinni and Sabaceanbabe, for all your hard work running this exchange.


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